Chester stood alone in the office, holding little Mary by the hand, when the Chief came out from his closet, looking very grave, but with much friendly sympathy in his manner. He wrung Chester's hand, and uttered a few cheering words. Chester could not speak. His firm lips began to quiver, and throwing himself upon a chair, he cast his arms over the railing, his face fell upon them, and the proud, wronged man sobbed like a child. What all the coldness and falsehood of his enemies had failed to do, was accomplished by a few words of unaffected sympathy. These alone had power to wring tears from his firm manhood, and Chester led his little protege home with a heavy heart, and a heavy, heavy heart was that which met his with its wild throb of anguish, as he entered the home where his wife sat weeping, and watching for him. CHAPTER IX. POVERTY, SICKNESS AND DEATH. How little would there be of grief or want If love and honesty held away on earth! The demon poverty, so grim and gaunt, But for injustice never need have birth! Give room and wages for the poor man's toil, And thus the fiend ye weaken and despoil. During six long weeks did the Mayor of New York keep Chester in suspense, and all that time the heart-stricken man had no means of support, save that derived from the labor of his wife. Day and night that gentle woman sat toiling at her needle, the smile upon her lip chasing the tear from her eye. Her sympathy was all given to the husband of her choice. She was grieved and indignant at the wrong that had been done to him. She was a generous and feminine woman, but her sense of justice was powerful, and her feelings of condemnation strong against any man who could violate the bonds of common equity which should bind neighbor to neighbor. With that keen intuitive sense that belongs to thoughtful womanhood, her conviction settled at once on the man from whom her husband had received his deepest wrong. Great love gave her almost the power of divination, and with all his craft, the Mayor failed to deceive one pure-hearted and clear-minded woman. She knew that he was her husband's enemy, and--blame her not, reader, till you have suffered similar wrongs--her gentle soul rose up against this man; she could not think of him without an indignant glow of heart and cheek. She could not hear his name without a thrill of dislike. She saw her husband's cheek grow paler each day; she saw his firm step grow weaker and weaker. In the night-time his hollow cough would start her from the brief slumber into which she had fallen. Then would the form of this, his unprovoked and relentless enemy, rise before her mind, and her soul turned shuddering from the image.